Women Hurt By Chairs, Bottles Thrown From Dragon Con Hotel

Where the chairs landed outside the Marriott Marquis

Two women were taken to Atlanta hospitals for treatment after being struck when chairs and bottles were thrown from the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta on Sunday morning around 1:30 a.m. The Marriott Marquis is one of Dragon Con’s host hotels.

Kelly McDaniel was walking in a first floor area of the hotel when one of the chairs hit her in the head. After treatment at the hospital, which used two staples to close the head wound, she gave an interview to reporters.

Atlanta’s Fox 5 quoted her:

“I feel this sharp pain and I thought maybe someone hit me with a water bottle saw chairs everywhere and someone dragged me inside. It was complete chaos,” said McDaniel.

In fact, she’d been injured by a chair. As she told the local CBS reporter (“Woman hit in head after chair is thrown from hotel’s 10th floor”):

McDaniel heard loud pops and felt something wet and warm gushing down here face.

“It was just so much blood,” she told Channel 2’s Rikki Klaus….

Paramedics rushed her to the hospital dressed in a Loki costume from the Avengers movies. McDaniel thinks the costume helped lessen the blow from the chair.

“I really think that saved my life,” she said.

McDaniel was one of two women who were hurt, police say. Both women were treated at the hospital and released. McDaniel is urging witnesses to call police.

“I think they need to punished by the law for assault with a deadly weapon. I could have been really hurt,” she said.

The Director of Media Relations for Dragon Con sent the Atlanta CBS affiliate the following statement:

Two women at Dragon Con were injured at the convention early Sunday morning when two chairs were dropped from an outside balcony on the 10th floor in the Marriott to a landing below. The women were treated and released at separate hospitals. We are grateful that the injuries were not more severe.  And we are proud of the Dragon Con attendees who stepped up quickly, realized the severity of the situation and provided immediate assistance.  Atlanta Police Department is investigating.

Here is the video of Fox 5’s report aired Sunday evening:

[Thanks to David K.M. Klaus for the story.]

15 thoughts on “Women Hurt By Chairs, Bottles Thrown From Dragon Con Hotel

  1. Always some assholes with no care for other peoples lives. I hope they get a long time in prison.

  2. It has been reported on various blogs that the perpetrators were people in town for the college football game, not DragonCon attendees.

  3. Reminds me of the 80s, when Sci-Con would be blamed for the drunken acts of wedding guests and soccer players who liked throwing things off balconies.

  4. Kip w may well be right. My first thought was that this was the doing of a Florida State football fan’s reaction to their teams embarrassing loss to Alabama.

  5. Dragon Con pulls over 75,000 attendees. I think it’s a reasonable conclusion to believe the guests throwing chairs were probably congoers.

  6. A lot of people are speculating on blogs who want the culprits not to be Dragon Con attendees, and unless they’re caught we won’t have a definitive answer.

    It does seem to be certain that the chairs thrown came from a 10th floor lounge area. (A commenter in an FB discussion even said that in a past year the hotel had cleared the furniture from that level due to a problem.)

    And there is no question that in general there are many years of history of problems with stuff being thrown at people in the streets from downtown Atlanta hotels.

    And I wouldn’t assume it’s impossible for them to be fans. The 1986 Worldcon used two of those hotels, including the Marriott Marquis, famous for its vast atrium (see

    ). A friend of mine reported overhearing one maid telling a coworker, “I like these people. They throw soft things.” Which illustrates both the problems they had to put up with, and that at least one fan wasn’t immune to throwing stuff into the atrium.

  7. @Lis: the same thing that was wrong with Boskone attendees in the 1980’s? (I missed seeing exactly who dropped a bottle in the 1985 atrium, so reamed the group collectively.) At least we knew then that the trouble was from fans; previous discussion means we can’t be sure what group this came from. It would be wonderful if someone turned in the people actually responsible, but I will be surprised if it ever happens.

  8. @Mike Glyer–

    And there is no question that in general there are many years of history of problems with stuff being thrown at people in the streets from downtown Atlanta hotels.

    Well, that’s disturbing, and mot an incentive to go to Atlanta when any large event is in town.

    @Chip–

    @Lis: the same thing that was wrong with Boskone attendees in the 1980’s?

    Well, when you put it that way…

    I’ll take my stand on the fact that it was thirty years ago. We don’t have a current I’m going history of it.

    Okay, it’s a feeble defense, but it’s what I got.

  9. Good lord I am glad that the person hit by a chair from the tenth story survived and is ok. Because good lord. Hope they find the person who did that.

  10. Were the chairs thrown from the interior atrium or an exterior balcony? One report literally says both, which can’t be right. The rest of the reports don’t seem to clarify.

  11. In a kinder, gentler era, I believe the then teenaged Terry Carr was thrown out of the 1954 San Francisco worldcon for throwing ice cubes out the window. The story may be apocryphal.

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